anything benevolent. He therefore closes his poem by a repetition of
the effect in the case of Balin. Pelleas is driven desperate by the
treachery of Gawain, the reported infidelity of Guinevere, and the
general corruption of the ideal. A shadow falls on Lancelot and
Guinevere, and Modred sees that his hour is drawing nigh. In spite
of beautiful passages this is not one of the finest of the Idylls,
save for the study of the fierce, hateful, and beautiful grande dame,
Ettarre. The narrative does little to advance the general plot. In
the original of Malory it has no connection with the Lancelot cycle,
except as far as it reveals the treachery of Gawain, the gay and
fair-spoken "light of love," brother of the traitor Modred. A
simpler treatment of the theme may be read in Mr Swinburne's
beautiful poem, The Tale of Balen.

It is in The Last Tournament that Modred finds the beginning of his
opportunity. The brief life of the Ideal has burned itself out, as
the year, in its vernal beauty when Arthur came, is burning out in
autumn. The poem is purposely autumnal, with the autumn, not of
mellow fruitfulness, but of the "flying gold of the ruined woodlands"
and the dank odours of decay. In that miserable season is held the
Tourney of the Dead Innocence, with the blood-red prize of rubies.
With a wise touch Tennyson has represented the Court as fallen not
into vice only and crime, but into positive vulgarity and bad taste.
The Tournament is a carnival of the "smart" and the third-rate.
Courtesy is dead, even Tristram is brutal, and in Iseult hatred of
her husband is as powerful as love of her lover. The satire strikes
at England, where the world has never been corrupt with a good grace.
It is a passage of arms neither gentle nor joyous that Lancelot
presides over:-